We are trying to organize the communities so that they may feel their responsibility in providing rational recreation for soldiers on leave from the camps. Now, most of the communities, at least a good many of them, have hitherto wanted these camps because they brought a good deal of business, but I think now if you travel around these communities you will find a difference: the communities are beginning to wonder what they can do for the soldiers. We are trying to stimulate that community feeling. I was very fortunate in getting the cooperation of the Playground and Recreation Association of America to handle this thing with us. It means an expenditure of $2,500,000 a year, and they are handling that fund themselves. They are raising the money in the communities in which the work is to be done under the general direction of our commission. We have 80 men now in 80 different communities in the neighborhood of military camps doing all sorts of things. They coordinate the activities of all kinds of organizations in the different towns; they work with the Y. W. C. A.; with the lodges; with the Catholic churches; with the Protestant churches, and all sorts of organizations. It is their aim to utilize the good ideas and to avoid the foolish ideas.

Take a town like Junction City, Kans., a little bit of a town of 3,000 people; they have raised $45,000 there, and put up a swimming pool, an officers' club, a soldiers' club, and the intention is to supply a building in which moving pictures may be shown. I feel that we have been very fortunate in harnessing up such communities to the task of surrounding the soldier with a healthy environment. Mr. CANNON. What is the name of this commission?

Mr. FOSDICK. The Commission on Training Camp Activities of the War Department.

The CHAIRMAN. To what expense are you put in doing this work? Mr. FOSDICK. We have been fortunate in getting a great deal of volunteer service, like the Playground and Recreation Association of America, for our community work. Then on the police end of the thing, of course, we must have pretty well trained men to report conditions from the camps, so that we can take it up with the Secretary of War, and he can take it up with the local authorities or camp commanders. We have secured the services of organizations like the American Social Hygiene Association, the New England Watch and Ward Society, and organizations of that kind. They have had trained men in the field in this kind of work for a good many years, and they report to us from place to place saying, "Around this camp there are three disorderly houses which have opened up." or, "At Gettysburg there are two houses on the outside of the town that have just opened up." We take that information to the Secretary of War and he takes it up with the local authorities, and in most cases we have the fullest cooperation on the part of the local authorities.

The money that goes into this work is provided by these societies, and they are glad to do it. Of course, we have had to be very careful in picking the societies because we could not afford to get tied up with any crank organizations, and thus far we have been fortunate in securing only the best. Now, there are certain overhead expenses in the office here. We were assigned space in the Land Office Building; we handle an enormous volume of correspondence, and I have six or seven stenographers there. So far we have not had a Govern

ment appropriation. Mr. Baker felt that perhaps he might be able to find some official funds somewhere; that is what he told me. We got started about two and a half months ago and I have partly financed the thing myself; I have paid my own stenographers, and I have been able to borrow a little money to keep the thing going, thinking that something would develop in the way of funds authorized by your committee out of which we could pay our overhead expenses. Of course when it comes to putting up auditoriums at the camps that would be quite an item. That is where we would stage our moving-picture shows, etc. It would cost from $15,000 to $20,000 apiece, I presume, to put up auditoriums at the camps, where we could handle fairly large crowds of men and run moving-picture shows.

I fancy that the $500,000 appropriated in the urgent deficiency bill could be used for that kind of thing, but that is a matter that would have to be determined by the Secretary of War. Our commission is merely an advisory commission; we have no administrative powers at all. However, Mr. Baker thinks the money could be used for auditoriums and the auditoriums could be built out of that appropriation, but we are still badly in need of funds for personal services. That is, we must pay athletic coaches in most cases, and we have to pay our stenographic help, but up to this time we have had no money whatever with which to do that kind of thing.

The CHAIRMAN. What kind of an administrative organization would you require?

Mr. FOSDICK. Well, we have now developed in the Commission on Training Camp Activities a pretty good going organization. The CHAIRMAN. Can you outline it?

Mr. FOSDICK. Yes. We have nine members on the commission. I brought along with me a letterhead, which contains the names of the members of the commission.

The CHAIRMAN. Insert that in the record.

Raymond B. Fosdick, chairman; Lee F. Hanmer; Thomas J. Howells; Joseph Lee; Malcolm I. McBride; John R. Mott; Charles P. Neill; Maj. P. E. Pierce, United States Army: Joseph E. Raycroft.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it proposed that the members of the commission will serve without compensation?

Mr. FOSDICK. Oh, yes; we all serve without compensation; it is entirely volunteer service as far as the members are concerned. Each of us has made himself responsible for a particular line of activity in the commission; that is, I have made myself responsible, as chairman of the commission, for the negative or police side. These vice reports come to me, and I take them up with the Secretary of War. Mr. Lee F. Hanmer is handling the dramatic end of our work and the singing. Dr. Joseph E. Raycroft, who is in charge of athletics at Princeton University, is handling the athletic end of the thing, and that is the way we have divided our work; that is, each man is responsible for a given line of activity, but all heading up through the office here in Washington.

The CHAIRMAN. What I had in mind was the organization required. in carrying on the work and for which money would be needed?

Mr. FOSDICK. Well, there could be. I presume, from 16 to 32 athletic coaches. They serve, in some cases, just for their expenses-of

course, we have to pay their expenses at the camps and in traveling to the camps-but I think a rate of pay equal to the pay of a lieutenant in the Army would be satisfactory for them, or perhaps a captain in the Army. Some of the men have to throw up responsible positions to enter into this work. Take a man like Tad Jones, athletic coach at Yale; we can get him for work like this in one of the Army camps, and there would be, as I say, 32 athletic coaches for the 32 training camps, or at least 16 for the 16 cantonments. There would be, I presume, 32 people who would be interested in the singing end of our work. I do not know that we could go into that to quite that extent, but that would be approximately the number I should think we could get into this activity. We are now using six stenographers; the work is growing so fast that we will probably require 10 before long, and perhaps more. It is difficult to forecast the exact amount of money that is needed, and when that item went through

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). We appropriated a half million dollars, and you are asking for $500,000 more?

Mr. FOSDICK. You gave us a half million dollars, but this clause regarding personal services was written into the bill, which meant that we could not go ahead and use the money for services here; that cut out all of our stenographers, all of our athletic coaches, and the people we wanted to use for singing; everything along that line. The CHAIRMAN. Can you not give us some information as to just what force of that character you need?

Mr. FOSDICK. Well, $500,000 was the nearest figure that we could go ahead on, and that was just a rough estimate. I could figure the thing out and present it to you.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you give us some information as to the force you now have and which you pay?

Mr. FOSDICK. As I say, I think we have about 10 athletic coaches now in the officers' reserve training camps; we have six or seven men on the singing end of the thing, and we have seven stenographers in the office-six or seven stenographers in the office. Now, that is about our present budget.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the maximum compensation paid to athletic instructors?

Mr. FOSDICK. The athletic instructors get the rate of pay of a lieutenant in the Army and that is $1,800; that is, at the rate of $1,800 a year.

The CHAIRMAN. What about the singing instructors?

Mr. FOSDICK. The same thing.

The CHAIRMAN. And the stenographers? .

Mr. FOSDICK. Oh, good stenographers are so hard to get nowadays, but from $1,000 to $1,200; I think at that rate.

The CHAIRMAN. You spoke of proposing to build auditoriums at each of these camps. Do you mean at each of the 32?

Mr. FOSDICK. No; not at the National Guard training camps, because that would hardly be practicable; only at the 16 cantonments. The CHAIRMAN. That would mean an expense of from $160,000 to $240,000?

Mr. FOSDICK. That is so, I suppose.

The CHAIRMAN. The Y. M. C. A. will have a building in each of those camps, will it not?

Mr FOSDICK. Yes; they will put up buildings at these camps, what they call hut buildings. It is practically a recreation hall and you could not stage a show in it very well; it is a place where the men write letters, read, and all that sort of thing. They are similar to the buildings proposed to be erected by the Knights of Columbus. The CHAIRMAN. I thought the Knights of Columbus were to have an auditorium in the buildings they are to erect.

Mr. FOSDICK. No.

The CHAIRMAN. And I supposed the Y. M. C. A. would have something of the same character.

Mr. FOSDICK. No. They are putting up some recreation halls; I have seen the blue prints of their buildings; they are buildings with flat roofs, containing writing facilities; I suppose you could pack, if you wanted to, 600 or 700 men in there and you might be able to give a moving-picture show for 600 or 700 men, although it would be very difficult, because the men would have no place to sit; they would have to stand up unless chairs or benches were provided.

The CHAIRMAN. I asked about that because a request was made to permit the erection of chapels for the services of the Catholic soldiers. Mr. FOSDICK. They are going to be held in the Knights of Columbus buildings.

The CHAIRMAN. And the Secretary of War said that arrangements had been made to permit the Knights of Columbus to erect buildings. Mr. FOSDICK. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And that there would be no objection to services being held.

Mr. FOSDICK. No; absolutely none.

The CHAIRMAN. But that he did not wish to start having a great number of different churches at the various camps; so I assumed that the type of building they would put up would provide for the accommodation of a considerable number of men.

Mr. FOSDICK. Well, it is a building about 120 feet long and 60 feet wide; it is so arranged that there are writing facilities on practically the three sides of the building and the altar at the end is shut off by some kind of screen; on Sundays, when they hold their services there, the Catholic soldiers will come for mass, and by shoving the screen away they can make quite a little church out of it by bringing in camp stools and chairs; that is what they intend to do, according to Col. Callahan and Father O'Hearn, with whom I have talked.

The CHAIRMAN. Would such a hall as that be sufficient to accommodate a number of men for the shows?

Mr. FOSDICK. Not very readily. You see, these camps are going to have from 40,000 to 50,000 men in them; that is an enormous number of men to provide recreation for, and we ought to have at least one place where we can get 2,000 or 3,000 men together. Take an instance where you have a big lecturer coming to the camp; perhaps he has been on the firing line abroad, and you want to give him the biggest possible audience, and thousands of men might want to hear him. Now, in order to do that you have got to provide a place in which a large number of men may gather to hear such a lecture or see a

show. Klaw and Erlanger, of New York, are getting up regular dramatic companies which they will send from camp to camp, and that will not cost the Government a cent. The demand for that sort of thing is so great that you could not possibly stage it either in the Knights of Columbus Building or the Y. M. C. A. Building. Moreover, those latter buildings are used for writing purposes and reading purposes to a great extent. The men who go there want to be quiet, and the use to which they will put such buildings is quite different from the use which would be made of auditoriums. We are getting figures now on the auditoriums in order to find out just what they will cost.

The intention is to have a building which can be used for lectures to the troops, or for any lectures whatever. Such a building could also be used as a theater or as a singing hall, and moving-picture shows could be given, or anything of that kind. I think the Government is going to need one building of that sort at least in every camp: I do not see how we can get away from it very well. It will be used by Army officers during the day for the purpose of gathering the men together and giving them lectures on military work. There is a great demand for that kind of thing. For example, at Plattsburg at the expense of the men, I believe they have put up a theater which cost them about $10,000; it was put up with private funds, largely donated, I think, by the men there. The building is used during the day for lectures on different points-bayonet practice and everything of that kind. We need a building of that kind at every camp. Then it could be used for church services. If you wanted a tremendous mass of 2,500 or 3,000 men from among all the Catholics in the camp, such a building would answer the purpose: or if you had a big preacher there, you could use such a building for holding church services.

The CHAIRMAN. Do your activities contemplate work in connection with the troops abroad or only in the camps in this country?

Mr. FOSDICK. I suppose it will be necessary to follow the troops abroad, but, of course, we can not go into the thing as intensively as we do in this country, because the environment is not the same. We can not do any community work there as we do here. I do not know whether we can do a great deal of police work, although we may be able to do a little along that line. I think we shall have to rely, to a great extent, on the Knights of Columbus and the Y. M. C. A. for recreation work abroad, but I think if it is necessary to supplement their work we can do it and I think perhaps we can get some Red Cross funds to carry it on. There has been a sharp line of demarcation between the work of our commission and the work of the Red Cross. We have come to an agreement, so that there is no conflict there at all. So far as the Y. M. C. A. and the Knights of Columbus are concerned, of course, they work under our general direction and we have representatives of both of those organizations in our commission, Mr. Mott representing the Y. M. C. A. and Mr. Neill the Knights of Columbus.

The CHAIRMAN. Are the services you now get paid for by voluntary contributions?